


Fire, Bones, and Char

by d__T



Series: It's Not A Nightmare If You Don't Die [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Fire, Gory Imagery, Have a sit down with someone from the past and talk ambiguously about all the shit that happened, bird bones, hallucinations maybe, what are dreams if not to be corrupted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 21:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13221699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d__T/pseuds/d__T
Summary: This is what happens in the dark: your friends leave you, and you look into the fire and see things.That’s the way it is. You know the drill.Now it's time to remember.





	Fire, Bones, and Char

It’s a festival, burning into the dark night. The black sky sweeps overhead and is framed at the edge of the clearing by twisted, naked trees. Fall has come, winter is coming; the air is cold but down here in the clearing there are bubbles of warm air around the scattered bonfires. People huddle around the fires, clutching warm drinks and their friends. Laughing.

Yours have left to secure more drinks, just a moment they said. But looking through the flames of the fire you sit beside, you can see them being integrated into the group around another fire. They’ll be a while longer and this is placidly, resentfully okay with you. This is what happens in the dark: your friends leave you, and you look into the fire and see shit.

That’s the way it is. You know the drill.

You look into the fire, and he looks back at you. Thin features under-lit by the flames, eyes black and twice glittery. No one would mistake him for a threat, but you know better than that now. He looks around at the rest of the festival, at the other revelers.

_ Look at them, _ he says, smiling.  _ Innocent. _

There is blackness behind that smile. Not the darkness of the sky, made ever darker by the crackling fires, not the blackness of sin or regret, but the inexorable darkness of lies overtaking the truth. You look across the fire at him, the moment small and intimate, only you know the rails of his mind. Power and sex, and only the worst elements of each. No intimacy in those depths, no intimacy for the bones in the fire. No innocence, like the others are different from him.

You know that in a different time he would have given you the bones and you would have put them in the fire. A gift. That time is past now, easy as that.

The bones in the fire assemble themselves, rising up into the shape of a bird. They were blood red once, but now they are black and fragile with soot and ash. The sockets of the skull are dark, like the sky. You know the drill: you look into the fire and see shit.

_ You lied_, you say. The bird opens its beak and spreads the idea of wings. Flames lick up through the bones, like a lover. You could be talking to the bird, but you are not. 

_ Of course, _ he says.  _ It’s what I do. _ Like he had the guile to plan any of this shit. Like he’s learned from his mistakes. Like if you wanted, you could reach through the fire and into the blackness and grasp the thing that is his tongue and make right the words coming from him. Like peeling back his skin to show the monster underneath would change anything.

You wonder what it would be like; flaying him back until he’s like the bird in the fire. He already has the thin features and the delicate bones. Now, it would be easy.

Not like when you laid beside the fire, hands clasped and noses behind ears and made the promises of monsters to one another: mutual redemption and fuck the rest.

Then, the bird bones said,  _ don’t dream. _ You did anyway, fearless of the monster making its home inside you.

Now, the bird bones say,  _ this is what you wanted. _

The bird laughs, vomiting burning cinders outside the fire stones. It does not seem to touch the dry grass or your skin. Despite this, you think it should burn. Burn the blood clean, like the bird.

Yeah, this is what you wanted.


End file.
